Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) (21 page)

“Right. You do know I’ll find out the truth eventually, don’t you? And worse—the police probably already know everything. If I can find it out, I assure you that they’re much more efficient than I am at that kind of thing.”

It seemed best not to mention Tootsie, or the fact his roommate was a cop and probably unaware of the methods Tootsie used to get information. It was better that way.

“That doesn’t concern me,” Cheríe said, though Harley was willing to bet it not only concerned her, but scared the hell out of her. “I have nothing to hide. Unlike your aunt. Did you know she was overheard threatening Harry? One of her employees heard her scream at him that she’d see him dead and in hell before she let him ruin her business.”

“You know, I find it very odd that you’re the only person I’ve heard say that. Why hasn’t this supposed
employee
said anything to the police? It’d seem like pretty important information. If it wasn’t coming from just you.”

Spite glittered in Cheríe’s eyes. “Oh, don’t worry. I told the police all about it. Just ask her. She’ll tell you the same thing she told me, and I’m sure she’s told the cops by now, too.”

I’ll be glad to,” Harley said, growing uneasy since it didn’t seem like Cheríe was lying about it. “What’s her name?”

“Find that out yourself. I have no intention of doing your work for you. Though what you think you’re doing is beyond me, since all you seem to have managed is to make yourself look like an idiot and piss off the cops.”

Unfortunately, that was far too close to the truth.

“Now stay away from me,” Cheríe said abruptly. A gust of wind caught at the brim of her hat and she put up a hand to hold it on her head.

Harley lifted a brow. “Wow, some biceps you’ve got there, Miss Saucier. You look pretty strong. Strong enough to, say, lift a dead man and hang him off some elk horns.”

“Come near me again, I’ll swear out a complaint for harassment,” Cheríe hissed, sounding so much like a cobra that Harley wouldn’t have been surprised to see a forked tongue flick out and fangs dripping with venom. Ouch. Must have hit her where it hurt. She smiled.

“You think this is harassment? Just wait. If I’m going to pay a fine, I’d rather it be after I get what I want. I already know you’re not who you claim to be, and that you’re neck-deep in a nest of vipers. You don’t have to go down with them. If you know who killed Harry, tell me. Or better yet—tell the police.”

For a moment, something flickered in Cheríe’s eyes, and Harley could have sworn it was grief. Then the moment passed, and the woman gave her a look of loathing. “Go to hell.”

“Thanks for the invite, but I’m having too much fun here.”

Cheríe turned around and began walking fast, away from Harley and toward the gallery. When Harley followed, Cheríe broke into a run and pushed past exiting visitors to go in the back way. Just as Harley got there, a gallery employee pulled the door closed.

“Go around to the front, please,” he said, shaking his head when Harley tried to open the door anyway.

“But I’m with someone. She just went in—a flowery dress and big hat?”

Still shaking his head, the man turned with his back to the French door, and Harley gave up and ran around the side to go in the front way. There were only two exits or entrances that she could recall, so maybe she’d catch Cheríe coming out the front way.

There was no sign of her. By the time Harley got inside, she had no idea where in the maze of walls, hung with paintings and flanked by glass cases, Cheríe could have disappeared. Not that she’d get any more information out of her, but if she could unnerve her enough, maybe she’d make a mistake of some kind. It had been Harley’s experience that rattled people tended to commit unexpected follies.

Like herself, for instance.

Unexpectedly, Cheríe Saucier rounded a corner and ran into her, looking as startled as a deer caught in the headlights. Before Harley could react, Cheríe did.

The hushed quiet of the gallery shattered as Cheríe yelped, then gave Harley a shove that sent her stumbling backward into a glass case set against the wall. Barely staying upright, Harley seized on the first object at hand and flung it at Cheríe’s head. Cheríe ducked. Pottery smashed into a dozen pieces, flying through the air, and someone screamed. Not Cheríe. She ran, but one of the employees rushed Harley like a Dallas Cowboys linebacker, tackling her around the waist and taking her down to the floor.

Trying to wiggle free to go after Cheríe, Harley quickly realized that the two hundred pound woman had her in a death grip. She went limp, but that only gave the employee a greater incentive to squeeze the air from Harley’s lungs. Right before she got to the passing out stage, the weight miraculously lifted, and Harley sat up coughing and sputtering.

“Dammit, you nearly killed me,” she got out, but by then the employee had backup, and Harley was hustled off to the office to make explanations while the police were summoned. Not one of her finest moments.

Fortunately, one of the Iowa women
had seen Cheríe assault Harley, or it could have been much worse. As it was, Memphis Tour Tyme had to make good on the broken Edwardian vase and promise not to send Harley back to the art gallery. Mr. Penney was most unhappy with her.

“Your personal problems are overlapping onto company time,” he said, and his usually dour expression went even more grim than normal. “Perhaps you need a leave of absence to sort out your family affairs.”

“Uh, unpaid?”

The look he gave her indicated affirmative, and Harley escaped Penney’s office as soon as possible. Tootsie shook his head when she leaned over his reception desk.

“Baby, you’re lucky you still have a job. He wanted to fire you. Fortunately, I convinced him that wouldn’t be in his best interests.”

“Just what kind of hold do you have over the ogre? There must be something. He’s not the understanding type. He’s one of those ultraconservatives that borders on fanatical.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, baby.”

“I never have understood that cliché.”

“It has something to do with telling a horse’s age. Or being smart enough to shut up while you still have a job.”

“Ah. That last I understand quite well. Thanks, Tootsie. Well, I’m going to look at this as a positive opportunity.”

“Oh please, God, don’t tell me.”

“Yep. Now I have more time to focus on who killed Harry. If Cheríe is to be believed—and since she’s already told the police about it, it’s pretty hard to unring that bell—there’s a witness who overheard Darcy threaten to kill Harry. If there is a witness, and this witness did tell the cops Aunt Darcy threatened Harry, then I want to find out who it is and what they heard. It’s certain Bobby won’t tell me anything, even if I went temporarily insane and asked him.”

“Any hope of talking you out of this?”

“Not much. The sooner the police have the real killer in custody, the sooner Aunt Darcy pays me the five thousand she’ll owe me, and the sooner I can come back to work. After a short vacation, maybe. Alaska might be nice this time of year. I’ve heard those cruises can be very relaxing.”

“Darling, I’m sure you’d manage to change all that.”

“I’m beginning to think that’s my talent. I’ve been wondering about it. Everyone has a talent, y’know? Maybe mine is snooping.”

Tootsie lifted a brow and pursed his lips. “That’s not a talent, honey. It’s more on the level of snoring. Not quite annoying enough to get you killed, but close.”

“Okay, we’ll refer to it as my new habit then. Did you find the address of the sister in Atoka, by chance?”

“By Internet, not by chance. Darling, think about it before you carry that fine little ass of yours all the way out to the wilds of Atoka. Two people have been killed. I’m not at all sure you should do any more snooping.”

“You’re probably right. Now, about that address . . . ”

Tootsie gave it to her, though not without a lot of eye rolling, pouting, and warnings that she should let the police handle it and not risk getting into any trouble.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll be careful. Just don’t mention any of this to Morgan tonight, okay? No point in worrying him.”

“Um hm. You two just make it in time for my performance tonight. Let me meet this man of yours so I can see for myself if he’s good enough for you. You’d think he’d be keeping you home at nights instead of letting you run the streets and sleep with corpses.”

Harley shuddered at the memory. “Stop complaining. All night in the dark with a corpse and a crying Cami taught me a few things.”

“Let’s hope it’s the right things. I’m not seeing much improvement yet.”

“You’ll see. I’m much more cautious.”

He sighed. “Somehow, I don’t find that as comforting as I once would have. Lately, your survival skills have been stretched to the limit.”

“Don’t
worry
,” Harley said again, “I have no intention of getting into any trouble.”

And she meant that. She really did.

Morgan surprised Harley. When he showed up at her apartment looking delicious in a dark blue knit shirt and tight black jeans that hid none of his best attributes, she half-expected him to refuse to go to Tootsie’s show at Numbers.

Instead, he shrugged. “Sure. No problem, if you’d rather go there than a movie.”

“Uh, you
do
know these are guys dressed up as women, don’t you?”

He grinned, and she loved the way it deepened the sexy groove on one side of his mouth. “Yeah, I know. We had the place under surveillance one time. No, I won’t tell you why. That was a few years ago. Everything came out all right.”

“You’re a man of constant surprises,” Harley said. “Is there anything else I should know about you?”

“If you mean, do I like to play dress up in fishnet hose and women’s underwear, no. But that doesn’t mean I have a problem with guys who do. As long as they stay on their side of the fence, if you know what I mean.”

Harley smiled. One more mark on the plus side of her mental checklist. As a boyfriend, he had real possibilities. Not that she was looking. No, the best thing to do was just float along and see how things worked out. To hell with her biological clock or Cami’s warnings. They were two different people.

“Then I’m sure we’ll have a good time,” she said, “because I understand most of those guys are really good at fence-sitting.”

Morgan gave her a skeptical look, but didn’t balk, so she figured he was doing all right.

After Wally burgers at Morgan’s favorite dive, a hamburger joint on Poplar that served cheeseburgers named after the first owner, cold beer, and hot grease, they went out the back door to reach Morgan’s car. It was jammed between an old van and a Jaguar. Wally’s had an eclectic clientele. Cool night air washed over Harley’s arms and the back of her neck, and crickets in the weeds behind a tall wooden fence that had seen better days almost drowned out the sounds of traffic. Red, blue, yellow and green lights along Poplar flashed off and on, advertising liquor stores, restaurants, dollar stores, and a major pharmacy. The ripe smell of fried onions had permeated Harley’s clothes, and she rolled down the car window to air out.

“You didn’t eat much,” Mike said, and she shrugged.

“I’m not that into cheeseburgers as big as truck tires. One of those could feed a family of four for a week. Besides, you ate my leftovers so nothing went to waste.”

“You sure you’re not a vegetarian? I never see you eat burgers.”

“If you’re referring to half a cow between two buns, no, you’ll never see me eat that much meat. No wonder that’s your favorite place to go. Talk about a value meal.”

“We could have gone somewhere classier. Somewhere you usually go.”

“Like Sekisui? Somehow, I didn’t figure you as a sushi kind of guy.”

He laughed and changed the subject. “So how do you like my ride?”

“Nice. One of your undercover cars?”

“Nope. Not anymore. I bought this at the police auction a while back.”

Harley nodded approval. It was an older model Corvette, a red convertible that had either been extremely well kept, or completely remodeled. Maybe the last, because this one had a built-in CD player in the dash.

“Is that Meatloaf?” she said when a familiar song played, and then sang along to
Paradise by the Dashboard Lights
. That song always put her in a good mood.

“It reminds me of my foolish youth,” she said when Morgan asked if she wanted to hear it again. “I lost my virginity to that song. In the back seat of a car, with the dashboard lights—such a romantic glow. Ah, those were the days.”

“Half the teenagers in the eighties lost their virginity during that song,” Morgan said with a laugh. “The power of suggestion.”

“Oh please. As if any of us needed a suggestion. All we needed was the right person and fifteen minutes alone.”

“That long? Most teenage boys have the staying power of a gnat.”

“Yeah, but I think Bobby had been practicing alone in his room at night.”

“Bobby . . .
Baroni?
”

Oops. She caught his surprised glance at her and managed a careless shrug. “That’s the one. It was a long time ago. We both realized pretty quickly we function much better as friends.”